Survey: Secure and Compliant Collaboration Ends at the Firewall for 68 Percent of Organizations Globally

Results of survey suggest that employees lack access to effective tools to do their job when it comes to inter-enterprise collaboration

NEW YORK, March 19, 2012 /CNW/ - A recent survey of more than 1,000 IT decision makers in 7 countries conducted online by Harris Interactive and commissioned by IntraLinks Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: IL), found that most often sensitive information exchanged beyond the firewall with business partners and customers is still primarily conducted through email and consumer-grade file sharing tools such as FTP sites.

In fact, the survey showed that 68 percent of global respondents still use email as their main method to send and exchange large files and sensitive data. In addition, findings also showed that the respondents were very much aware of the security and compliance issues around using email, ftp sites and other consumer-grade file sharing services (69 percent sited malware as issues and 63 percent sited information theft as issues). This suggests that organizations have not addressed the need to provide employees standardized, secure file-sharing tools for collaborating beyond the firewall.

This is considered problematic in a business climate in which many of the respondents indicated a key part of their role is to share critical business information with partners, suppliers, and consultants (46 percent) and where growing regulations and legal issues will drive compliance challenges for organizations: 55 percent of respondents say they face a variety of government IT regulations and 50 percent of respondents say they face a variety of industry regulations

"Success in business has always depended on effective collaboration, but today the nature of collaboration is changing," said Fahim Siddiqui, Chief Product Officer, IntraLinks. "The enterprise now extends to a broad network of relationships with business partners and customers and a wide range of interactions, from simple ad hoc communication to deep relationships spanning workflow and secure content exchange and collaboration. Without the right controls in place, security and compliance are jeopardized, and ultimately, IT departments are accountable. Organizations need to evaluate how cloud technology and a standardized collaboration solution can offer control and management of sensitive information both inside and outside the firewall."

The data above are the results of a global survey of more than 1,000 IT decision makers in seven countries including the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Brazil, Japan and Australia conducted by Harris Interactive between January 26 and February 13, 2012.

About the Survey

This IT Decision Maker study was conducted online among 1,104 IT decision makers within the United States (N=254), United Kingdom (N=125), France (N=129), Germany (N=125), Brazil (N=127), Japan (N=126), and Australia (N=125) by Harris Interactive on behalf of IntraLinks between January 26 and February 13, 2012 among adults age 18+, employed (either full-time, part-time, or self employed), and self reported as an IT Decision Maker for their company of employment. This data is not weighted and it is therefore only representative of the population surveyed.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words "margin of error" as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100 percent response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

About IntraLinks

IntraLinks is a leading global provider of Software-as-a-Service solutions for securely managing content, exchanging critical business information and collaborating within and among organizations. More than one million professionals in industries including financial services, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, consumer, energy, industrial, legal, insurance, real estate and technology, as well as government agencies, have utilized IntraLinks' easy-to-use, cloud-based solutions. IntraLinks users can accelerate information-intensive business processes and workflows, meet regulatory and risk management requirements and collaborate with customers, partners and counterparties in a secure, auditable and compliant manner. Professionals at more than 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies have used IntraLinks' solutions. For more information, visit www.intralinks.com or http://blog.intralinks.com. You can also follow IntraLinks on Twitter at http://twitter.com/intralinks and Facebook at www.facebook.com/IntraLinks.

About Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive is one of the world's leading custom market research firms, leveraging research, technology, and business acumen to transform relevant insight into actionable foresight. Known widely for the Harris Poll and for pioneering innovative research methodologies, Harris offers expertise in a wide range of industries including healthcare, technology, public affairs, energy, telecommunications, financial services, insurance, media, retail, restaurant, and consumer package goods. Serving clients in over 215 countries and territories through our North American and European offices and a network of independent market research firms, Harris specializes in delivering research solutions that help us – and our clients – stay ahead of what's next. For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com.